On the first weekend in December, while I was making pancakes, Hannah and Eric mixed up some salt dough using this recipe. Those two were pretty eager to set up the Christmas tree so after stamping out a few bunnies, I took over the assembly line and filled two cookie sheets with bunnies.

We baked them at our oven's lowest temperature for a LONG time which kept them from bubbling up like last year's ornaments (awesome tip from the mama at The Imagination Tree).

That evening, while I made dinner, Hannah started painting. We used acrylic paint this year so we covered the table and Hannah in plastic in an attempt to control the potential damage.

Her painting this year was much more thorough than last year, and rather than using a variety of colors on each bunny (like she did with the ducks), she covered each bunny in just one color.

The painting process went pretty quickly, probably because she's had a lot of practice at this point. I should take a picture of the wall that runs from our dining room to our kitchen to illustrate just how much practice she's had....we call it Hannah's gallery because it's covered in her art. She comes home from school with a new painting almost every day, and every day, we tape it to the wall. Some people think this is crazy, but I think it's fun. I don't plan on keeping all this stuff forever, and I don't hang it there because I'm overtly proud of my kid and think she's the next Picasso or anything; I really just think it's fun. The wall was boring and empty before because I never got around to decorating (beyond painting the walls), and I love the insanity and kitchiness of wall full of preschooler paintings. I like a house that's lived in. So the bunny painting happened pretty quickly....

The decorating, however, has taken weeks. Hannah tired of glittering them pretty quickly. We still have about 15 un-fancy bunnies patiently awaiting their turn to be fancified. I gave up on having a picture of them all "finished" and took a picture of what we had on Saturday morning so I could start passing these suckers out. Last year I didn't get most of them out until after the holidays and by then everyone had put away their Christmas stuff so this year, nobody knows where their ducks are. Anyway, our dining room table has been bunny central for long enough, and I'm ready to take it back.

I picked out my favorite bunny for our tree, and, lucky for me, Hannah was okay with letting me pick. She happily found a place for our bunny and then offered to pose with it while giving me her latest weirdo "smile" face.

It'll be fun to see how many salt dough ornaments cover our tree 20 years from now....maybe when she's older she'll opt for a non-salt dough ornament to mix things up a bit...Either way, a decade or two down the line, I should have a tree full of original ornaments (and so should a number of you if you keep them), and that is something awesome to look forward to.

2 comments:

I can't wait to have a lifetime collection of Hannah ornaments!! I have already filed this idea away in my life book and totally plan on stealing this tradition!!! When I was decorating this week, I meant to text you and tell you even in the disgruntled, "too cool" teen phase Hannah MUST continue making ornaments!!

hahah! I agree! I'm hoping that by her teen years she is not only still interested in making ornaments, but that she has moved beyond the salt dough thing into something more complex....she'll have free reign over that project as soon as she's ready for it so hopefully that level of control will appeal to even the most disgruntled teenager :)